By Marcela Sulak
The models on the box will not correspond
to the colors they´ve represented at home.
The nuances of brown go on and on
and none are translatable.
The instrucions will belong to the old
Ottoman Empire, written as they are
in hungarian, turkish and italian.
The conditioner pays homage
to the Allies who have divided it into french
and russian with something for the tired
german tongue. Good thing
you have done this before. The comb
will be fine-toothed and sharp and will want
to haggle. The losses will hurt.
The color will bleed over white porcelain
in a bathroom that does not belong to you.
Obviously, socialism is a thing of the past.
You will hold up your hair with plastic clothes pins,
pencils, toothbrush ends. Your shoulders
will freckle, your hips, grown unfamiliar
with suitcase bruises, rich food and strange
habits of exercise, will catch random drops.
The tapwater will be too hot and the pipes will sing
Béla Bartók in salsa beat. You will
emerge,
darker, more mysterious. Slovak
verbs mingle
polish prefixes at your temples, but it's all
the murmur of tongues to you.
Pentecost is over
and no one will recognize you for weeks.